The Ultimate FEDAL (Wars) Thread

[brokenshoelace]

I think that a large part of that is actually retaliation from some Fed fans. There is a strong belief amongst Federer supporters that for the longest time, Rafa fans seemed to believe that Rafa only lost because of injuries. As arrogant as Fed fans are, I think it pales in comparison to that conceit. I for one am willing to accept Roger's shortcomings and losses, but the woulda coulda that comes from Rafa fans can be quite infuriating. The implication seems to be that if it wasn't for his injuries he would be the best of them all. This is sport. The greats pay a price for the way they play. Rafa with his attritional style, Roger with his refusal to change a winning formula. This is what happens. The funny thing is I rather suspect that the players accept the choices they've made, but we fans have a great difficulty doing this

Dude, Darth literally just admitted in this very thread that he's just greedy and always expects the most out of Federer. I don't have an issue with that general attitude by the way, even if I don't agree with some of his arguments. And not once did Darth claim he has this mentality as a retaliation against Nadal fans.

I can't speak for Front but when it comes to Cali, I mean... do I even have to say anything?

So while you do make good points about Nadal fans and excuse making (and they have offered plenty of it in the past), let's not kid each other and say this justifies or explains certain attitudes.

 

[brokenshoelace]

So...my argument, which is that it's ridiculous to claim Fed had no business losing to Nadal at Wimbledon in 2008 is being met with "Rafa fans are excuse makers and they defend his gamesmanship"?

Now, I will once again concede that this is indeed an accurate claim. Nadal fans are biased (almost more so than other fans, at least around these boards), make a lot of excuses (although some excuses are warranted), and defend his gamesmanship (this part is inexcusable although I think Nadal has toned it down a lot and much of what people bring up is old, especially regarding medical time-outs)... However, I will ask my dear Fed fans, what does any of this have to do with the notion that Federer's loss to Nadal in the Wimbledon final was not this scandalous embarrassment that some claim it is?

 

[Ricardo]

In addition, some Rafa fans like to defend his gamesmanship. While some of his old habits such as taking fake MTO's are gone, Rafa still likes to make opponents wait. The dawdling could be due to some superstition.

Making your opponent wait doesn't break any rules except it won't win you sportsmanship awards, if anyone cares. Even at club level i see some players are rather good at it, as you know when you do it enough, you can manage to piss off your opponent and then they would beat themselves as they almost always try too hard to thrash you.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Making your opponent wait doesn't break any rules except it won't win you sportsmanship awards, if anyone cares. Even at club level i see some players are rather good at it, as you know when you do it enough, you can manage to piss off your opponent and then they would beat themselves as they almost always try too hard to thrash you.

What do you mean? There are rules telling how many seconds one can take in between points (20 second and 25 seconds in ATP/ITf).
Only thing is that it is not enforced with a sledge hammer.

 

[Moxie]

I'm going to break this down, and see if folks agree:

We have kind of two tiers of Rafa/Roger fans. The rabid ones, for whom a) every Roger loss is an abomination and can't be justified, and may be related to surface unfairness, or b) for whom every Rafa loss is attributable to injury, loss of confidence or maybe surface. The second tier would be those trying to argue, within reasonable margins, why some of those things have ever mattered, but why some losses just happen. And are willing to allow that both of them are pretty fecking great tennis players.

Then there's the bleed-across, which is when people get stroppy because either a) they're tired of hearing the same argument, b) they're tired of being lopped into the same group as the rabid fans, or c) because we do eventually push each others' buttons, a bit.

I don't suppose that this will help, but it does bear reminding that we aren't all cut from the same cloth, even if we're willing to keep debating the relative merits of Fedal.

 

[atttomole]

Making your opponent wait doesn't break any rules except it won't win you sportsmanship awards, if anyone cares. Even at club level i see some players are rather good at it, as you know when you do it enough, you can manage to piss off your opponent and then they would beat themselves as they almost always try too hard to thrash you.

That is why it’s called gamesmanship. In gamesmanship, you are not exactly breaking the rules, but annoying the opponent.

 

[atttomole]

So...my argument, which is that it's ridiculous to claim Fed had no business losing to Nadal at Wimbledon in 2008 is being met with "Rafa fans are excuse makers and they defend his gamesmanship"?

Now, I will once again concede that this is indeed an accurate claim. Nadal fans are biased (almost more so than other fans, at least around these boards), make a lot of excuses (although some excuses are warranted), and defend his gamesmanship (this part is inexcusable although I think Nadal has toned it down a lot and much of what people bring up is old, especially regarding medical time-outs)... However, I will ask my dear Fed fans, what does any of this have to do with the notion that Federer's loss to Nadal in the Wimbledon final was not this scandalous embarrassment that some claim it is?

Fedal wars are multi pronged. One is that some FedNadal fans are arrogant, and in that discussion we ended up talking about how some fans of one player are infuriated by the fans of the other. There are many reasons for that, not just the claims that Federe should have won Wimbledon 2008.

 

[Fiero425]

That is why it’s called gamesmanship. In gamesmanship, you are not exactly breaking the rules, but annoying the opponent.

Which is why I've never cared for Nadal! His gamesmanship "stole" quite a few matches when he was on the ropes! I've started calling him a "vampire" because he sucks the life out of a match with his toweling off, scratchin' his junk, pulling underwear out of his crack, & challenging calls he knows aren't worth it! :bloodsucker2: :bat: :skull: o_O

 

[Fiero425]

Fedal wars are multi pronged. One is that some Fedal fans are arrogant, and in that discussion we ended up talking about how some fans of one player are infuriated by the fans of the other. There are many reasons for that, not just the claims that Federer should have won Wimbledon 2008.

That's one thing I don't think I've done much of; blaming fans of Nadal! There's no accounting for taste, but they're entitled! I personally wouldn't go as far as they do in their sycophancy! I cheerlead the most for Navratilova, but back it up with numbers; not partiality!

 

[atttomole]

Which is why I've never cared for Nadal! His gamesmanship "stole" quite a few matches when he was on the ropes! I've started calling him a "vampire" because he sucks the life out of a match with his toweling off, scratchin' his junk, pulling underwear out of his crack, & challenging calls he knows aren't worth it! :bloodsucker2: :bat: :skull: o_O

When he takes more than 25 seconds between points, that is infringement, and as GSM said, some of the rules are not enforced strongly enough.

 

[Fiero425]

When he takes more than 25 seconds between points, that is infringement, and as GSM said, some of the rules are not enforced strongly enough.

Carlos B. usually gets him to speed it up, but the clock's still abused! Rafa has asked for other umpires to be assigned to his matches since Carlos will call him out occasionally anyway! :sleep:

 

[Ricardo]

What do you mean? There are rules telling how many seconds one can take in between points (20 second and 25 seconds in ATP/ITf).
Only thing is that it is not enforced with a sledge hammer.

not so simple, there is no clock for making your opponent wait when warm up starts. Or when your opponent is ready to serve and you stop and pick 'something' but still do it within time limit, that doesn't break rules but sure annoy the crap out of your opponent. I am quite aware of the little things that can mount up to make a psychological difference as tennis is a very sensitive sport. Having played years of competitive level i have met guys who excel at this, and can often turn around matches by doing the little things which are not really tennis related. Some guys deliberately argue line calls for a length of time just to break the other guy's momentum and mood.

It's not just 20/25s rules, not so simple.

 

[Moxie]

I think that a large part of that is actually retaliation from some Fed fans. There is a strong belief amongst Federer supporters that for the longest time, Rafa fans seemed to believe that Rafa only lost because of injuries. As arrogant as Fed fans are, I think it pales in comparison to that conceit. I for one am willing to accept Roger's shortcomings and losses, but the woulda coulda that comes from Rafa fans can be quite infuriating. The implication seems to be that if it wasn't for his injuries he would be the best of them all. This is sport. The greats pay a price for the way they play. Rafa with his attritional style, Roger with his refusal to change a winning formula. This is what happens. The funny thing is I rather suspect that the players accept the choices they've made, but we fans have a great difficulty doing this

I didn't respond to this before, but I would like to now. There is old and contentious history of when Nadal was injured and why he lost, basically dating to early in his career, and when and how it benefitted Roger. We all remember enough of this without my going over it, but '09 was the biggest bone of contention. Now that we've seen most of Nadal's career, and history of injuries, I think we can say that they have featured in some of his losses, which have often been followed by periods of lay-off. However, no Nadal fan with a brain has attributed 2011 to other than Djokovic getting in Nadal's head. And much of 2015 was about Nadal's own lack of confidence. He's lost plenty of matches perfectly healthy, and I think we all cop to that. But there are folks who hang onto Nadal "faking injury," for no reason. Like @Front242. I'm copying his post from the YEC thread so as not to derail that one with a Fedal War:

He posted: "Shut the f**k up you tards. Commentators moaning about Nadal's f**king knee and Goffin has serious knee strapping himself. What a load of tards."

Front is one of those who basically doesn't believe that Nadal has ever had a serious injury that prevented him from playing, or contributed to him losing. Obviously, this is a fairly extreme position, but it plays to the endless script that we Nadal fans are excuse-makers.

I don't know how any Federer fan, or otherwise tennis fan, can prognosticate that Nadal's attritional style will cause him to have a shorter career than Roger's without accepting that he's had a high number of real injuries, compared to Roger (or even Novak and Murray.) So how much is "excuse-making" and how much is just a fact of Nadal's playing style? Folks love to blame his "playing style" for his injuries...so they have to accept that there are injuries that have left him out of Majors and the YEC, several times. Have they lost him matches? A reasonable person would say Yes.

 

[Front242]

I didn't respond to this before, but I would like to now. There is old and contentious history of when Nadal was injured and why he lost, basically dating to early in his career, and when and how it benefitted Roger. We all remember enough of this without my going over it, but '09 was the biggest bone of contention. Now that we've seen most of Nadal's career, and history of injuries, I think we can say that they have featured in some of his losses, which have often been followed by periods of lay-off. However, no Nadal fan with a brain has attributed 2011 to other than Djokovic getting in Nadal's head. And much of 2015 was about Nadal's own lack of confidence. He's lost plenty of matches perfectly healthy, and I think we all cop to that. But there are folks who hang onto Nadal "faking injury," for no reason. Like @Front242. I'm copying his post from the YEC thread so as not to derail that one with a Fedal War:

He posted: "Shut the f**k up you tards. Commentators moaning about Nadal's f**king knee and Goffin has serious knee strapping himself. What a load of tards."

Front is one of those who basically doesn't believe that Nadal has ever had a serious injury that prevented him from playing, or contributed to him losing. Obviously, this is a fairly extreme position, but it plays to the endless script that we Nadal fans are excuse-makers.

I don't know how any Federer fan, or otherwise tennis fan, can prognosticate that Nadal's attritional style will cause him to have a shorter career than Roger's without accepting that he's had a high number of real injuries, compared to Roger (or even Novak and Murray.) So how much is "excuse-making" and how much is just a fact of Nadal's playing style? Folks love to blame his "playing style" for his injuries...so they have to accept that there are injuries that have left him out of Majors and the YEC, several times. Have they lost him matches? A reasonable person would say Yes.

Uh what? When did I say he was faking injury yesterday? What I said was the clown commentators were making a big deal out of only one guy when Goffin had very obvious, visible knee strapping and has done for months now. That's just biased and dumb on the part of the commentators like steroid abuser Rusedski. Quite sure Goffin has knee pain too but not a single word was said about him...

 

[isabelle]

the war is over till 2018

 

[Ricardo]

I didn't respond to this before, but I would like to now. There is old and contentious history of when Nadal was injured and why he lost, basically dating to early in his career, and when and how it benefitted Roger. We all remember enough of this without my going over it, but '09 was the biggest bone of contention. Now that we've seen most of Nadal's career, and history of injuries, I think we can say that they have featured in some of his losses, which have often been followed by periods of lay-off. However, no Nadal fan with a brain has attributed 2011 to other than Djokovic getting in Nadal's head. And much of 2015 was about Nadal's own lack of confidence. He's lost plenty of matches perfectly healthy, and I think we all cop to that. But there are folks who hang onto Nadal "faking injury," for no reason. Like @Front242. I'm copying his post from the YEC thread so as not to derail that one with a Fedal War:

He posted: "Shut the f**k up you tards. Commentators moaning about Nadal's f**king knee and Goffin has serious knee strapping himself. What a load of tards."

Front is one of those who basically doesn't believe that Nadal has ever had a serious injury that prevented him from playing, or contributed to him losing. Obviously, this is a fairly extreme position, but it plays to the endless script that we Nadal fans are excuse-makers.

I don't know how any Federer fan, or otherwise tennis fan, can prognosticate that Nadal's attritional style will cause him to have a shorter career than Roger's without accepting that he's had a high number of real injuries, compared to Roger (or even Novak and Murray.) So how much is "excuse-making" and how much is just a fact of Nadal's playing style? Folks love to blame his "playing style" for his injuries...so they have to accept that there are injuries that have left him out of Majors and the YEC, several times. Have they lost him matches? A reasonable person would say Yes.

lets start with simple facts, Nadal plays such demanding style because thats what he needs to compete at that level to win, and that style causes more wear and tear....less if he was small, but Rafa is very heavily built so injuries are expected. what i find weird is Nadal fans call it unlucky about his injuries, and imply his imaginary wins (if he was lucky like players without many injuries). Well if you are built and play like Rafa, what else do you expect, honestly?

however, a reasonable person would see those injuries are legit (but not unlucky).

Unlucky injuries are when you go out and a car hit you, or when you take a bath with your kid. Injuries caused by constantly overloading your body have nothing to do with luck, period.

 

[Federberg]

I don't know how any Federer fan, or otherwise tennis fan, can prognosticate that Nadal's attritional style will cause him to have a shorter career than Roger's without accepting that he's had a high number of real injuries, compared to Roger (or even Novak and Murray.) So how much is "excuse-making" and how much is just a fact of Nadal's playing style? Folks love to blame his "playing style" for his injuries...so they have to accept that there are injuries that have left him out of Majors and the YEC, several times. Have they lost him matches? A reasonable person would say Yes.

Really not sure what point you're making here. Nadal's style is attritional and is the reason for his injuries. Coming up with woulda coulda scenarios, about how he would have done if he hadn't been injured attempts to wash over the fact that he wouldn't have been the threat in the first place without increasing his odds of injury due to his style of play. Even then, it's hard for us non-Nadal fans to have much sympathy when we see him running around like a jack rabbit against Leyton Hewitt one minute then hitting short balls against Soderling (in heavy conditions that were ideal for a crusher like Robin) the next time around, and then all of a sudden... "oh he lost because he was injured". Unless you're telling us he was hitting short balls because he was injured it simply doesn't wash. We aren't going to just ignore the eye test, even if we also know that his style of play makes it more likely for him to get injured. Where would be the sense in that?

 

[Moxie]

Really not sure what point you're making here. Nadal's style is attritional and is the reason for his injuries. Coming up with woulda coulda scenarios, about how he would have done if he hadn't been injured attempts to wash over the fact that he wouldn't have been the threat in the first place without increasing his odds of injury due to his style of play. Even then, it's hard for us non-Nadal fans to have much sympathy when we see him running around like a jack rabbit against Leyton Hewitt one minute then hitting short balls against Soderling (in heavy conditions that were ideal for a crusher like Robin) the next time around, and then all of a sudden... "oh he lost because he was injured". Unless you're telling us he was hitting short balls because he was injured it simply doesn't wash. We aren't going to just ignore the eye test, even if we also know that his style of play makes it more likely for him to get injured. Where would be the sense in that?

There were a few points. One was that some people, like Front, still love to doubt injuries from Rafa. Or you, who still hold onto the notion that a lot of Rafa fans think he only loses because of injury. You're even still going over the Soderling match. I disputed that we always use the injury excuse. And I'll remind you that plenty of people argued (and still do) that a player can be injured and yet it not be the deciding factor when another player is in the zone. It's merely holding two ideas in one's head at the same time. Injury wasn't the reason he lost to Soderling, though I think it contributed, but it IS the reason he didn't defend Wimbledon and didn't play for the subsequent 2 1/2 months.

And you may claim that you don't go in for the woulda coulda thing, but you did agree with Darth recently when he was complaining about Roger playing Montreal and how it kept Roger from winning the USO. On the YEC thread, you say that you only meant that it wasn't the best tune-up for USO. Ok, but a lot of Fed fans around here have been decrying that, but for the back injury suffered in Canada, Roger would have the USO and YE#1. That is a "but-for-injury" story, and it's the same thing that Nadal fans get accused of. And I didn't even mention "mono-gate."

So my point is that it's an old trope vis-a-vis most Rafa fans. And, esp. as Roger gets older, some complaint about impairment comes in, too. I say, fair enough. Sometimes they play a bit hampered, and sometimes they lose, in part, because of carrying an injury. Tennis matches are long and lost for a variety of reasons, sometimes. I know you to be capable of subtlety.

 

[El Dude]

I feel tainted for liking one of Ricardo's posts, but he made the same point I've made several times about Rafa. His greatness and propensity for injury are two sides of the same coin: his style of play. A less-injured Rafa would also almost certainly be less great because his style is so physical, so hard on the knees, and because he is relatively bulky.

 

[Federberg]

There were a few points. One was that some people, like Front, still love to doubt injuries from Rafa. Or you, who still hold onto the notion that a lot of Rafa fans think he only loses because of injury. You're even still going over the Soderling match. I disputed that we always use the injury excuse. And I'll remind you that plenty of people argued (and still do) that a player can be injured and yet it not be the deciding factor when another player is in the zone. It's merely holding two ideas in one's head at the same time. Injury wasn't the reason he lost to Soderling, though I think it contributed, but it IS the reason he didn't defend Wimbledon and didn't play for the subsequent 2 1/2 months.

And you may claim that you don't go in for the woulda coulda thing, but you did agree with Darth recently when he was complaining about Roger playing Montreal and how it kept Roger from winning the USO. On the YEC thread, you say that you only meant that it wasn't the best tune-up for USO. Ok, but a lot of Fed fans around here have been decrying that, but for the back injury suffered in Canada, Roger would have the USO and YE#1. That is a "but-for-injury" story, and it's the same thing that Nadal fans get accused of. And I didn't even mention "mono-gate."

So my point is that it's an old trope vis-a-vis most Rafa fans. And, esp. as Roger gets older, some complaint about impairment comes in, too. I say, fair enough. Sometimes they play a bit hampered, and sometimes they lose, in part, because of carrying an injury. Tennis matches are long and lost for a variety of reasons, sometimes. I know you to be capable of subtlety.

I’m not sure where you’re getting this from. I was complaining about Roger playing Montreal before the tournament started. Where you leap to me making excuses about his not winning in NY truly floors me. Frankly I thought it served him right and is possibly the worst scheduling decision he’s ever made. You must be mixing me up with someone else. My biggest beef was his wasting his Tim on rankings rather than slams. The rest would take care of itself. Try again As for the rest. I’ll attend to that tomorrow